Gillespie's Hospital, Edinburgh

Category

Library Item

Item no

18711

Title

Gillespie's Hospital, Edinburgh

Description

Gillespie's Hospital has castellated battlements and small turrets.

Artist / maker

Shepherd, Thomas Hosmer

Engraver

Cruse, A

Date

1829

Size

9.9 15.3 cm

Type

Engraving

Location

Edinburgh and Scottish Collection

This image comes from 'Modern Athens', a book of engravings based on drawings by Thomas Shepherd published in 1829. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries Edinburgh was growing rapidly. The popular neoclassical architectural style of the time was inspired by the ancient Greeks and Romans, and Edinburgh was nicknamed 'Athens of the North'. Shepherd's engravings celebrate the beauty of Edinburgh and show many notable buildings and streets both within the city, and further afield.

Gillespie's Hospital was built in 1802 on the site of Wrychtis House, an old baronial mansion belonging to the Napier family. The hospital was built as the result of a bequest by James Gillespie (1726-1797) who was a wealthy tobacco merchant who owned snuff mills at Spylaw in Colinton. Gillespie left £12000 for a hospital and £2000 for the establishment of a free school for poor boys. The hospital took in poor men and women over the age of fifty-five, and the nearby school educated boys between the ages of six and twelve. In 1870 the hospital shut down and the school transferred to the Hospital building, and became fee paying. In 1908 lack of space and money meant the running of the school was transferred to Edinburgh Town Council. In 1914 the School moved to a building on Bruntsfield Links which had formerly been used by Boroughmuir High School.

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